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ANIMALS OF EGA 



unusual to see a nearly tailless monkey from America, 

 that naturalists thought, when the first specimens arrived 

 in Europe, that the member had been shortened arti- 

 ficially. Nevertheless, the Uakari is not quite isolated 

 from its related species of the same family, several other 

 kinds, also found on the Amazons, forming a graduated 

 passage between the extreme forms as regards the tail. 

 The appendage reaches its perfection in those genera (the 

 Howlers, the Lagothrix and the Spider monkeys) in which 

 it presents on its under-surface near the tip a naked palm, 

 which makes it sensitive and useful as a fifth hand in 

 climbing. In the rest of the genera of Cebidae (seven in 

 number, containing thirty-eight species), the tail is weaker 

 in structure, entirely covered with hair and of little 

 or no service in climbing, a few species nearly related 

 to our Uakari having it much shorter than usual. 

 All the Cebidae, both long-tailed and short-tailed, are 

 equally dwellers in trees. The scarlet-faced monkey lives 

 in forests, which are inundated during great part of 

 the year, and is never known to descend to the ground ; 

 the shortness of its tail is therefore no sign of terrestrial 

 habits, as it is in the Macaques and Baboons of the Old 

 World. It differs a little from the typical Cebidse in its 

 teeth, the incisors being oblique and, in the upper jaw, 

 converging, so as to leave a gap between the outermost 

 and the canine teeth. Like all the rest of its family, it 

 differs from the monkeys of the old world, and from 

 man, in having an additional grinding- tooth (premolar) 

 in each side of both jaws, making the complete set thirty- 

 six instead of thirty-two in number. 



The white Uakari (Brachyurus calvus), seems to be 

 found in no other part of America than the district just 

 mentioned, namely, the banks of the Japura, near its 

 principal mouth ; and even there it is confined, as far as 

 I could learn, to the western side of the river. It lives 

 in small troops amongst the crowns of the lofty trees, 

 living on fruits of various kinds. Hunters say it is 

 pretty nimble in its motions, but is not much given to 

 leaping, preferring to run up and down the larger boughs 

 in travelling from tree to tree. The mother, as in other 

 species of the monkey order, carries her young on her 

 back. Individuals are obtained alive by shooting them 

 with the blow-pipe and arrows tipped with diluted Urari 

 poison. They run a considerable distance after being 



